This week the CDC recommended that the country adopt a new approach to bringing back to work people who have had COVID—moving from a test-based strategy to a symptom-based strategy.
They have done this because they have identified a subcategory of people who keep testing positive after they are no longer sick and no longer contagious—so-called “permanent positives.” These may test positive for as long as 90 days after recovery.
Two days after this guidance was released, I discovered that I am among their number. I still test positive for COVID-19 although I am two weeks past any symptoms. There aren’t many of us, and they don’t know why this happens.
Read the document I linked above. Laboratory studies of people like me have been unable to find a single contagious particle of virus inside us, and contact tracing has found zero cases where we have spread COVID-19.
It appears that those of us who are permanent positives have broken virus particles in our respiratory tracts that can show up on the test but that cannot spread the disease.
The CDC wants people like me to stop trying (in vain) to test negative. We are vainly eating away at a limited supply of test kits and laboratory time.
The CDC’s recommendation is that we let people return to work when they have gone at least 10 days from symptom onset and 3 days with no symptoms.
I’m tweeting tonight just to let you know that permanent positives like me exist and to make you aware of this new CDC guidance. I’d encourage you to read the article linked above.
